


brighter than any i've known

by nosecoffee



Series: strange estrangement, nothing here is real, nothing here is right [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: A little angst, Arguments, Beronica going on a date, Boombox Cliché, But also making up after a fight, Crack, F/F, Fluff, Forgive Me, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Magical Realism, Mermaids, Nail Polish, OT4, Picnics, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, This is mostly just Beronica, be warned, im so tired, it's nearly midnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 23:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10752240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: She drinks champagne the way one should drink a Virgin Mary, and she drinks a Virgin Mary the way one should drink champagne (which is to say she drinks the hangover cure politely, and the alcoholic beverage in one swig.)Betty thinks about this, late at night, trying to convince herself that she's not really angry at Veronica for thinking it would be funny to stumble into Pop's covered in blood from the tree out front of the library and collapse on the floor.As a joke.(Or the cliché where you stand under your s/o's window with a boombox playing their song and climb through their window to beg for forgiveness AU)





	brighter than any i've known

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Under Your Spell' from Once More With Feeling (Buffy: the Vampire Slayer)
> 
> I know that these usually have more supernatural stuff in it, but I gave you confirmation for mermaids, so I'm hoping that's enough.
> 
> Enjoy!

Betty notices things about Veronica.

Various, lovely, _odd_ things.

She's upfront about pretty much everything (her opinions, what is right, if Archie's shirt is just on the wrong side of being too tight) except for her feelings. Veronica's very private, very clumsy when it comes to her emotions, so Betty does her best not to pry when Veronica doesn't want her to.

She wears the latest styles, effortlessly, but looks like she could care less about her outfit (Betty would like to see her in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt. Or ripped jeans, a tank top, and a backwards baseball cap. Or nothing. She hardly ever sees Veronica in nothing, these days.)

She says goodnight on the phone, and then climbs out her window, ready for the adventure that she vocally despises, yet secretly craves (Betty thinks Veronica might have a thing for danger, a thing for mystery. She's been too nervous to ask as of yet).

She drinks champagne the way one should drink a Virgin Mary, and she drinks a Virgin Mary the way one should drink champagne (which is to say she drinks the hangover cure politely, and the alcoholic beverage in one swig.)

Betty notices these things and thinks on them, late at night, when she wants press her fingernails into her palms, because Veronica thought it would be funny to stumble into Pop's covered in blood from the tree out front of the library and collapse on the floor.

As a joke.

Thinks on these things, and bolts upright as loud music starts up outside her window.

It's boppy, very 60's chic, with an almost Lana Del Ray singer crooning over the drums.

Betty shoves her window up and leans out, raising her eyebrows at Veronica, standing out by the bins, and the fence between hers and Archie's houses, holding a boom box over her head.

 _"Oh, Betty...you are my baby...oh, Betty...your love is lazy."_ The song continues and Veronica looks up at Betty, a rueful smile on her face.

"Ron," Betty sighs, as the song continues, rubbing her eyes, "it's the middle of the night."

"I know." Veronica calls up.

_"Betty, won't you, won't you come on home?"_

"Here to beg for forgiveness?" Betty inquires.

"Thought the song spoke for itself?" Veronica says, and presses down a button, which cuts the song off, just swinging into the second verse.

Betty rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "Come up before my mom bursts out the back door with a baseball bat to hit you with, you teenage hooligan."

Betty closes her window again, and flops down on her bed, loose hair getting squashed under her head. She rubs her eyes and sighs, shallowly. If her mother caught Veronica sneaking into the house, Betty wouldn't know how to explain.

She hears her door open with a soft creak, and close again. The mattress dips under Veronica's weight, and there's soft hands on the one Betty's not holding over her eyes. Soft lips on the palm, on the back.

"I'm an idiot, I know." Veronica whispers. Betty sits up and pulls her hand from Veronica's grasp, who lets it go, easily. Her understanding is what hurts most.

"You're a dumbass, that's what." Betty snaps, lacing her fingers together, in her lap.

"Call me out," Veronica murmurs, "It's what I'm here for."

"I was terrified, Veronica." Betty hisses, slamming a hand into the sheets. It makes a dull thudding noise that makes Veronica flinch a little. "Do you know what it would do to me if you'd actually- and don't even get me started on the boys."

"They're my next stop."

"Oh good." Betty seethes. "You got some discount Lana Del Ray songs named after them on your Walmart-brand boom box?"

"Betty-"

"Don't. Veronica..." She exhales sharply, looking down at her socked feet, not quite reaching the floor. "I'm only angry at you because sometimes I don't understand you, and I want to, so bad. And when you do shit like that, it makes me think that I've never really understood you."

"Oh, Betty, I don't-"

"Veronica-"

"Let me get a word in!" Veronica shoves Betty, one hand on each shoulder, smacks her down into the mattress, and leans over her, eyes tearful. Betty hadn't been looking at her. Betty didn't know she had been crying. Veronica sighs, wipes her eyes - smearing her mascara - and lies down beside Betty. "I'm sorry. I love you, and I'm an idiot, and I never should have done it."

"I was so afraid, Ronnie." Betty murmurs. "Terrible things happen to people in this town, horrible, gruesome things, and I couldn't live with myself if I let anything happen to you."

"I'm so sorry, Betty." Neither of them mention what Veronica said, neither of them whisper a syllable about it.

Betty climbs carefully on top of Veronica, straddling her hips with her thighs, and kisses her with all the emotion she felt then and in the diner. She presses as much of herself to Veronica as she can, and when Veronica rolls her over, presses her hands to the indents of Betty's hips, underneath her sleep pants, and pushes, only then does Betty break the silence.

"I thought you were going to see the boys." She whispers, and Veronica laughs into the underside of Betty's chin, scraping her nails lightly against the inside of Betty's thigh.

Betty gasps.

"I'll go see them tomorrow morning," she promises, dipping down the press sweet kisses to the hollow of Betty's throat. "For now I've come to beg forgiveness from my beautiful, intelligent, amazing girlfriend."

Betty wonders about Veronica, sometimes.

Wonders how the hell she's going to explain it all to her shocked mother when she walks into Betty's room, and finds Veronica and Betty tangled under Betty's sheets, naked and content, the next morning.

~

The nail polish she's using smells like banana candies, once you get past the toxic petrol-like-addicting scent.

Betty gets a whiff of it when she walks into the room and reels at the smell, because no one paints their nails in her house. Ever.

(Her mother gets hers done at the salon, and Polly took all her nail polish when she moved out.)

"Hi," Veronica says, brightly, over her shoulder.

"Hey," Betty says, hanging up her scarf. "Nail polish?"

Veronica stands up and blows on her nails, smiling. "Yeah. I wanted to look nice for our date."

"You always look nice." Betty assures her, putting her hands on Veronica's hips so that Veronica can dangle her arms over Betty's shoulders.

"Nice-er." Veronica amends.

"So, once your nails are dry, we can go?" They're swaying ever so slightly, to the slow beat of the song Veronica has playing out of her phone.

"Yeah." She agrees.

"Okay." Betty looks around that apartment for a minute and looks in the direction of the kitchen. "Do you have any easy-peely-cheese?"

"'Easy-peely-cheese'?" Veronica stifles a laugh behind the back of her hand.

Betty rolls her eyes. "Like, that flat, square cheese that you get in individual plastic wraps?" She clarifies.

"Plastic cheese?" Is her girlfriend's reply.

"It's not plastic!" Betty protests, loudly, pulling away.

Veronica rolls her eyes. "It's practically plastic." She claims, laughter in her voice, bubbling in her throat.

"No," Betty says, "that's Regina George."

"I fucking love you." Veronica giggles, and turns away to do something at the dining table.

There's a beat of ambient silent, and the song on Veronica's phone changes. It's the song she was playing out of the boombox outside Betty's window last week.

"I was gonna say something," Betty begins, walking towards the kitchen and opening up the fridge, "but before I do, do you have any cheese?"

"There's a nice Brie on the top shelf, but we don't have any easy-peely-cheese." Veronica calls from the dining room and Betty regards the contents of the fridge with avid, bewildered disgust.

"Well, I take back what I was about to say." She says, walking back, her sneakers clacking against the hardwood floor.

"Which was?" Veronica turns, pulling her glasses off her head and putting them into her glasses case with a snap.

"...are your nails dry?" Betty's attempts to avoid the topic she probed re not great, she knows. Knows Veronica knows this, too. Veronica quirks an eyebrow at her and blows on the shining midnight blue nails.

"Close enough." She says.

"I love you too." Betty tells her.

"Oh thank god." Veronica sighs, and pushes Betty into the wall, kissing her.

Kissing Veronica is always a trip, one that Betty is well versed in, by now. It's still dazing, though. In a way that makes her a little cross-eyed, even after it's over, blinking to try and clear everything out. Veronica taps her nose as she pulls away and checks her lipstick in the mirror right next to Betty's head. She fixes the smear with a swipe of a finger, and winks at Betty, before turning back to the dining table.

"Hey, so," Betty looks in the mirror herself, and wipes at her mouth with a tissue from the back of her jeans pocket, squashed flat, "I think I heard that the boys were also having date night tonight."

"Sweet." Veronica pauses as she pulls on her jacket. "Are they stealing our idea for riverside-picnic?"

"Most probably." Betty sighs. "Goodbye originality."

"Damn." She purses her lips and scrunches her nose up, the way she does when she's really drunk, or very set in a decision. "I kinda wanted for it to just be us. Now it's gonna be a group date. Not that I don't like those, but sometimes-"

"I know." Betty assures her, kissing her, quickly, as to not smear her lipstick too much. "Look, I'll tell 'em to back off a little."

Veronica beams at her and kisses her back. It's barely a peck. "Thanks."

"You ready?"

"Yeah." Veronica agrees, placing a final kiss on Betty's cheek.

"Let's go." Betty tugs on Veronica's arms and takes her scarf off the hook.

~

Veronica pulls away, a frown on her face. "Hey, hang on-" she says, looking around. Betty reaches up and cups her face.

"What?" She asks. "That was nice."

"No," Veronica shakes her head and smiles a little. "I just think I heard something..." She trails off, biting her lip.

"It's probably just the boys." Betty dismisses it, but Veronica sits up, beside Betty on the blanket. Betty drops her hands.

"No, it's different." Veronica protests, lowly, and looks around again.

"Ronnie?" Betty inquires, as Veronica slowly stands, barefoot on their picnic blanket.

"It's like...sweet." Her voice has gone all floaty. She takes a step forward and knocks a can of Solo on its side.

"What? Ronnie, what the ever loving fuck are you doing?" Betty stands up, after her, pulling her shirt down again, and taking her hand.

Veronica pulls away. "Someone's singing..." She whispers, feet meeting the compactly sand of the shore.

"Fuck, Ronnie," Betyy looks around wildly - what the fuck was happening - and reaches for her girlfriend again. "Stop it, don't-"

"Betty," Veronica's out of reach, feet in the lapping waves of the river, moving forward, waving a dismissive hand in a way that should convey 'don't worry' and instead conveys 'I'm under a fucking spell'. "I gotta find out who's singing-"

"No one - Ronnie don't go in the river!" Veronica's still walking and Betty tugs up her jeans, up her calves, wading into the cold water. Veronica doesn't seem fussed at the temperature, which further proves Betty's idea that Veronica's being possessed or something.

"I think I-" She cuts off when, suddenly, waist-deep in the river bank, she's tugged into the water, and disappears into the dark, icy depths. Betty rushes forward, splashing.

"RONNIE!" She cries.

Betty dives right towards where Veronica disappeared in the bank of the river. She fucking hates it when this happens.

There's Veronica - misty eyed, smiling, even as her oxygen leaves her mouth in large bubbles. Betty kicks harder, grabs Veronica's outstretched, inviting hand, and rips her from the mermaid's grip.

Betty pulls Veronica from the water, hauls her up onto the sand, hits her back with a closed fist until Veronica's finished spewing up river water.

"Believe me, now?" Betty asks, and Veronica smiles, weakly as the boys shout, seeing them, soaked, on the shore. Veronica's waterlogged, and they're running over the hill towards them.

"Oh yeah. Mermaids are real. And pretty darn hot." Veronica rasps, and faints in Betty's arms.

"Archie," Betty says, once she's got Veronica's head supported, and can look up at them without straining her neck too much, "I'm volunteering your house for Recuperation Tuesday Night."

"Well said," Archie replies, and picks Veronica up, bridal style in his arms. "We have Doritos."

"Thank fucking God," Jughead mutters and slips on the rocks. "Motherfucking shit!"

Betty laughs unabashedly at him, and he gives her the middle finger.

"Hey, maybe next week, we can go to the abandoned asylum down near the fire station for date night." He suggests in a voice that's only half joking.

Archie snorts. "And what? Look into the Valentine murders there?"

Betty gives them both a look. "Are you kidding me? Of course we're doing that."

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please feel free to leave a comment and/or a kudos, and track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Some other notes: the song Veronica plays is 'Betty' by The Pom Poms, and it's great. Seriously, guys, do check that song out. It's so good. I listened to it on repeat while writing this. (You can probably tell if you look too closely).
> 
> If you're looking for some more quality content, I encourage you to check out works by writers such as @oopsiwroteathing, @angeburger, @Lyxxie, and @nimmieamee. They're all really, great, and their fics are A+. So, please, do go check them out.
> 
> Again, thank you for reading.


End file.
